The week’s passages

Roger Ebert, 70, the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic famous for his thumbs-up, thumbs-down method of judging movies — most famously on TV shows with his film-critic rival and longtime friend, the late Gene Siskel — died of cancer Thursday in Chicago.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, 85, the screenwriter and novelist who, as the writing member of the storied Merchant Ivory filmmaking team, won two Academy Awards for adaptations of E.M. Forster novels (“Room with a View” and “Howard’s End”), died of a pulmonary illness Wednesday in Manhattan.

Phil Ramone, 79, the veteran record producer whose work with such top-tier talent as Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon made him one of the most revered figures in the music business and a winner of 14 Grammy Awards, died March 30 of pneumonia, after having heart surgery in February.

Ralph Klein, 70, a rambunctious Canadian politician who helped bring the 1988 Winter Olympics to Calgary as the city’s mayor and then, as premier of Alberta for 14 years, spurred development of the province’s massive oil-sands deposits, died March 29 in Calgary. He had dementia.

Jane Nebel Henson, 78, the artistic collaborator and widow of Muppets creator Jim Henson — they separated in 1986 after more than 20 years but stayed friends — died of cancer Tuesday in Greenwich, Conn.

Victor Carranza, 77, who with his own army fought off attempts by Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cocaine cartel, Marxist rebels and rival traders to achieve a near-monopoly of Colombia’s emerald trade, then managed the metamorphosis of his image to that of a man of peace, died Thursday of lung cancer in Bogotá, Colombia.

Georges Corvington, 88, a Haitian historian, died of heart failure Wednesday in Port-au-Prince, the capital that was the focus of his best-known works.

Barbara Piasecka Johnson, 76, the Polish-born widow of Johnson & Johnson heir J. Seward Johnson Sr., who became one of the world’s wealthiest individuals by largely prevailing in a nasty legal battle against her six stepchildren from his two previous marriages, died Monday in Wroclaw, Poland, after a long illness.

Bob Turley, 82, a Cy Young-winning, right-handed pitcher with a blazing fastball who lifted the Yankees to a come-from-behind victory over the Milwaukee Braves in the 1958 World Series, died of liver cancer March 30 in Atlanta.

J. David Kuo, 44, an evangelical Christian who was a leader in President George W. Bush’s faith initiative but left frustrated and disillusioned, died Friday of brain cancer.

Edith Schaeffer, 98, founder with her late husband, Francis Schaeffer, of a Swiss commune considered the theological birthplace of the American religious right, and author of many popular books that helped define conservative Christian family values, died last Sunday in Huemoz, Switzerland.

Carmine Infantino, 87, a celebrated comic-book artist and DC Comics editor and publisher remembered as the man who rescued Batman and the Flash from the brink (of cancellation), died Thursday in New York.